Akerman Road smashes Air-tightness test

The Council is committed to building not only more homes, but better homes and a recent test on the Akerman road development shows just how committed we are as a council to this.

Akerman Road under construction

The Akerman Road development is one of the few developments in the UK which is aiming to meet the Passivhaus (Passive House) standard . This standard aims to minimise the amount of heating homes needs by building homes with exceptional airtightness. This airtightness is measured by how many ‘air changes per hour' a building would allow. While the maths that sits behind air changes per hour is complex what it shows isn't - higher the number the more heat that will leak out.

Current UK building regulations mean that modern homes are required not to allow more than 10 air changes per hour. The PassivHaus standard far exceeds this which means essentially that in a PassivHaus no heat is lost through leaks and drafts. This, combined with a ventilation system which recovers heat while allowing fresh air in not only ensures that the PassivHaus home is healthy, avoids problems with mould and damp it is also cheaper for people to live in - heating costs for the average PassivHaus are £5/month.

The Akerman Road homes are now erected and weather-tight and recently had their initial airtightness test. In these test they achieved a standard which is 30 times better than UK building regulations. This puts Akerman Road in a good position to meet the Passivhaus standard.

This shows that as well as building more homes for Lambeth the Council is building better homes as this PassivHaus standard can only be achieved through a quality design and high levels of skill form the builders work on the project.

The development on Akerman Road will see 9 new homes at Council level rents with the first families moving in later this year.